Striving for self-sufficiency in a modern world, we're a homeschooling family of 3 with a 13yo still crazy about ships of the air and sea, a mad-for-gardening dad who can't keep up with all his seedlings and me, a mom who would love to have more time to indulge in spinning, knitting, weaving, sewing or reading. We're creating our version of the good life in the Shenandoah Valley.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

It's easy if you know how. Just knit a warm and cozy hat that you really want to wear.

In January I found a Cat Bordhi hat pattern with a Moebius brim and splendid wooly tendrils I couldn't forget. And I needed a warm winter hat. So I started knitting my Arctic Anemone hat with some really, really soft, bulky superwash merino yarn beautifully dyed by Black Sheep Dyeworks.

I finished the hat in time for a field trip DS and I were scheduled to make to Lexington on Feb. 14. The weather report was pessimistic, promising sleet and ice, maybe snow. But with my hat finished, I was ready to face it. The morning did start out overcast but by mid-day we were walking around the grounds at VMI with our coats off and the sun shining brightly, warming us and making my hat superfluous.

This past weekend it snowed. 8 inches on Sunday! I wore my hat all day. By today all the snow had completely melted and the outdoor thermometer was registering 63ºF. at 5:30pm when I drove DS to his viola lesson. I wore my hat anyway. Drove with the window half-open so I wouldn't overheat...

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2012-07-22: Put another 1.5 gals of sour pickles in regular 2-gal crock. Tested first batch--they're getting there but not quite yet. Put down a 5-gal bucket of sliced cukes in lime water for bread-and-butter pickles.

2012-07-13: Put up 24 pints of Amish canned coleslaw. Saw 3 young racoons climbing fencepost in backyard. Jim noted they were "cute and purred" at him when he approached them. That diversion saved them, they escaped before he could get back outside.

2012-07-09: Caught a full-grown racoon in trap set with marshmallows(!).

2012-07-06: Lost all 5 of EB's 2-mo-old chicks to a racoon that got in the chick pen around 1am. Ordered Little Giant live animal trap.

Salsa for canning

growing food closer to home

Snowball with her day-old Turken chicks

Warhammer 40k

DH and DS's armies going at it on the kitchen table.

Currently Reading

The Guynd: A Scottish Journal - Finally getting around to reading this work by Belinda Rathbone that I requested thru PaperBackSwap. It's a memoir of courtship and marriage to a modern-day Scottish laird -- the Guynd is where they end up living, the property that's been in his family for 400+ years. Finding it pretty interesting as it's part guidebook, part history, and part bio that's presented pretty evenly tho the reader is always aware it's written from Rathbone's sometimes one-sided perspective. The progressive telling of the poignant yet wry personal relationship dovetails nicely with the story of the ancestral home.

There Will Be Dragons - First in a series by John Ringo, this one is SciFi plus Fantasy and starts with earth several thousand years in the future where humans have become so satiated and complacent without strife, famine and crime that the population has been in decline for years. The ruling Council finally splits on the question of how to deal with the problem and the result is the world is thrown back to pre-industrial days when the previously limitless power supply is cut-off. Combines a little bit of survialism relying on medieval recreationism (think SCA) and some mythology with just plain fun (read good) human drama and characters worth knowing. Well, some, anyway.

The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family - Reads almost like a novel tho I know it's not. Came to this after running across Debo Mitford's recent "Counting My Chickens." I remember vague mention of one or other of the family in my reading over the years but Lovell's book brings it all together. Much better than my lamentable memory especially since I never knew half of their story. Making notes for more reading as I go. Good footnotes and bibliography. I like that in a book.

Sauce Book - Straightforward recipe book -- but what solid recipes. Basics to more refined. Liked this one so well I ordered a used copy (OOP) for myself.

American Prince: A Memoir - A bit of whine shows thru and he always seems to be fighting an inferiority complex but I generally like Tony Curtis. The Persuaders are still a favorite, Spartacus wouldn't be the same without his pretty-boy self, and a few of those old movies (comedies mainly) are keepers, too. So the book held my interest for the most part -- lots of skimming, tho.

How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way - Good how-to video. Lee and Buscema keep it light and entertaining. Worked well for our homeschool drawing class intro to drawing comics. There's a book of the same name that adds a bit more detail, too.